With only two of us at home, I usually only cook two racks of baby backs once a week. For such a small cook, my SnS/DnG equipped 22.5†Kettle is a perfect "rib machine". It doesn’t leak, although I quad-clamp it anyway, and will hold 250 degrees throughout the cook with very little attention from me.
With the better-half on a week-long business trip to Atlanta, I thought it a perfect time to test my new Hovergrill. (I ordered it last week when Meathead announced the Pit member discount from the folks at Smokenator.) I was really only concerned with the temps of both grills, thinking there would be some happy medium temperature, say 225 deg on the bottom rack, where the upper rack would "hover" around 250 degrees.
It was a perfect summer day in the desert with clear skies, no wind, and temps heading for 114 degrees by noon… no problem, I do it all the time.
For the test, I decided on three, three pound racks… each cut in half. I’ve done three on the Kettle before, but have to roll ‘em. My goal with the Hovergrill was to have capacity to do four when needed, but using three halves on each grill for the test would ensure that there was adequate spacing and I’d get a better "feel" for how future cooks might go.
As mentioned earlier, this thing is a machine, and I’m very familiar with how to control the vents to set my normal 250 deg temps. With a grill probe on both grates, my goal was to reach 225 degrees on the bottom in the hope that the top would settle at the expected 250’ish point. Like in business, you can’t manage what you don’t measure, so I need some actual data points with the new upper grill.
The pics below are annotated, but I had a heck of a time getting the bottom grate up to 225 degrees. The Hovergrill almost immediately jumped to 267 degrees and stayed there, regardless of my effort to get the bottom grill up to 225 degrees.
At the beginning of the second hour, I had finally managed 225 degrees on the bottom, and the Hovergrill was rock-solid at its favorite 267 degrees… very disappointing.
I usually do the 3-2-1 method for ribs, not even looking during the first three hours. That was a mistake this time. At the three-hour alarm, the top ribs were way over cooked and had accumulated way too much smoke. The bottom ribs had very little smoke accumulation and were obviously not ready for a wrap.
I wrapped the top ribs in foil with plenty of apple juice and threw ‘em in a 210-degree oven. I left the bottom ribs on the grill for another 1 ½ hours to try to gather more smoke. However, I usually put my smoking wood on the first half of the SnS, and the results were not very good when I finally wrapped them at about 4 ½ hours.
At the end of the day, it’s needless to say the top ribs were ruined… to the point of being inedible. Bones out for the neighbor’s dog. Yuck! The bottom ribs were at least edible, but nothing to write home about.
I’ll note here that I had dry brined the ribs for about three hours before putting them on the Kettle. I credit that alone for salvaging at least the bottom ribs.
So, what’s my bottom line and lessons learned?
The Hovergrill, while well built from stainless steel, is not really going to work well cooking ribs on a 22.5†Kettle. It might, however, work fine on the 26†Kettle because the dome and area around the smaller (18â€) Hovergrill would be sufficient to keep it under control… something impossible with the smaller Kettle/Hovergrill combo.
For now, if I need to cook four or more racks of baby backs, I’ll just throw ‘em in the WSM.
With the better-half on a week-long business trip to Atlanta, I thought it a perfect time to test my new Hovergrill. (I ordered it last week when Meathead announced the Pit member discount from the folks at Smokenator.) I was really only concerned with the temps of both grills, thinking there would be some happy medium temperature, say 225 deg on the bottom rack, where the upper rack would "hover" around 250 degrees.
It was a perfect summer day in the desert with clear skies, no wind, and temps heading for 114 degrees by noon… no problem, I do it all the time.
For the test, I decided on three, three pound racks… each cut in half. I’ve done three on the Kettle before, but have to roll ‘em. My goal with the Hovergrill was to have capacity to do four when needed, but using three halves on each grill for the test would ensure that there was adequate spacing and I’d get a better "feel" for how future cooks might go.
As mentioned earlier, this thing is a machine, and I’m very familiar with how to control the vents to set my normal 250 deg temps. With a grill probe on both grates, my goal was to reach 225 degrees on the bottom in the hope that the top would settle at the expected 250’ish point. Like in business, you can’t manage what you don’t measure, so I need some actual data points with the new upper grill.
The pics below are annotated, but I had a heck of a time getting the bottom grate up to 225 degrees. The Hovergrill almost immediately jumped to 267 degrees and stayed there, regardless of my effort to get the bottom grill up to 225 degrees.
At the beginning of the second hour, I had finally managed 225 degrees on the bottom, and the Hovergrill was rock-solid at its favorite 267 degrees… very disappointing.
I usually do the 3-2-1 method for ribs, not even looking during the first three hours. That was a mistake this time. At the three-hour alarm, the top ribs were way over cooked and had accumulated way too much smoke. The bottom ribs had very little smoke accumulation and were obviously not ready for a wrap.
I wrapped the top ribs in foil with plenty of apple juice and threw ‘em in a 210-degree oven. I left the bottom ribs on the grill for another 1 ½ hours to try to gather more smoke. However, I usually put my smoking wood on the first half of the SnS, and the results were not very good when I finally wrapped them at about 4 ½ hours.
At the end of the day, it’s needless to say the top ribs were ruined… to the point of being inedible. Bones out for the neighbor’s dog. Yuck! The bottom ribs were at least edible, but nothing to write home about.
I’ll note here that I had dry brined the ribs for about three hours before putting them on the Kettle. I credit that alone for salvaging at least the bottom ribs.
So, what’s my bottom line and lessons learned?
The Hovergrill, while well built from stainless steel, is not really going to work well cooking ribs on a 22.5†Kettle. It might, however, work fine on the 26†Kettle because the dome and area around the smaller (18â€) Hovergrill would be sufficient to keep it under control… something impossible with the smaller Kettle/Hovergrill combo.
For now, if I need to cook four or more racks of baby backs, I’ll just throw ‘em in the WSM.
We moved here about seven years ago and expected the pool temp to be crazy hot. However, much to our surprise is wasn't.
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